


A Day at the Fair

by EnchantressEmily



Category: Widdershins (Webcomic)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Headaches & Migraines
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-29 18:44:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17813432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EnchantressEmily/pseuds/EnchantressEmily
Summary: The Malform Busters get called out to a local festival, but the crowd is more than Mal can handle.





	A Day at the Fair

**Author's Note:**

> Indirect spoilers for Green-Eyed Monster and Curtain Call.
> 
> This fic is set between Green-Eyed Monster and Curtain Call; I'm not sure how much time elapsed in-universe between those two books, but I'm just going to pretend it was long enough for this to happen somewhere in there.

Mal’s shoulders hunched involuntarily as he followed Wolfe into the crowded square. There was some kind of festival going on today – he didn’t even know what – and all the noise and excitement was like a physical blow. Why the hell had some bloody wizard decided to do a summoning _here_? 

Ahead of Wolfe, Ben was striding purposefully through the crowd, somehow managing to clear a path by sheer force of officialness despite his slight stature. Wolfe, blast him, was looking around as if enjoying the sights. Mal could only be grateful that they were just here to catch a buggerup; in their former life this fair would have been a prime opportunity for busking, and he would have had to sit here all day. 

Eventually they located their destination: one of the stalls set up around the edge of the square. It had had a game involving tossing wooden balls into holes, but the balls were scattered everywhere, and the striped awning over the stall was torn and hanging crookedly.

The young woman behind the counter had a wizard’s dazzling aura, swirling with agitation. Mal flinched and put up a hand to shield his eyes. 

Ben cleared his throat as he stepped up to the stall. “Excuse me, ma’am. We’re the malform removal service. You sent for us?”

The wizard sighed with relief, her aura calming a little. “Oh, thank goodness you’re here. Please get rid of this thing – it’s driving away all my business, not to mention making a mess of the stall.”

“Can you tell me anything about what kind of spirit it was?” Ben asked, taking a box of chalk from his coat pocket. 

There was a spike of embarrassment from the young woman. “I tried to imbue the game with Enthusiasm so people would want to come and play. I won’t do that again.”

Ben turned to Mal. “Do you see it, O’Malley?”

Mal squinted at the stall without answering. His head was already pounding, and he just wanted to get this over with and go home. “Nah,” he said after a minute. “Must be hidin’.” 

Ben pushed up his glasses, the better to glare at him. “Well, then, look for it!”

Mal returned the glare and made a show of peering into the spaces on either side of the stall, but he still saw no sign of the buggerup. 

Enthusiasm? How was he supposed to find Enthusiasm with that same emotion, along with a hundred others, bombarding him on all sides? It was only getting worse the longer he stood here, too. He pressed his hands over his eyes for a moment, gritting his teeth.

A large hand gripped his shoulder comfortingly; Wolfe always knew when he was feeling overwhelmed. Some of the tension left Mal’s body at the touch, although it did nothing to ease the splitting pain in his head.

“Don’t suppose ye could go get yer violin, could ye?” he muttered so that only his friend could hear. “I’m never goin’ t’find it like this. ‘S too much.”

“That is a fine idea,” Wolfe said, giving his shoulder a squeeze. “If you are able to wait here with Ben, just for a short while, I will fetch it and be back very soon.” With a few murmured words to Ben, he was gone.

The withdrawal of Wolfe’s vast, calming presence made the clamor of the festival, if possible, even worse. Mal sank down to sit with his back against one of the stall’s support posts, gripping his head with both hands. He was vaguely aware of Ben talking to the other wizard – lecturing her, by the sound of it – but he didn’t bother listening; he needed all his concentration just to hold himself together.

After a while he heard Ben’s voice above him. “O’Malley?”

Mal grunted without looking up.

“O’Malley, I…want to apologize for snapping at you just now,” Ben said hesitantly. “Wolfe told me you were having a bad time, but I should have seen that without needing to be told. It – it isn’t as if I haven’t been through it myself. I’m sorry.”

Mal glanced up to see him awkwardly touching his hair; he still did that sometimes when thinking about the incident that had resulted in its being cut. 

“S’all right,” he muttered. This seemed inadequate somehow; after a moment he added, “Thanks.” 

Silence fell between them until Wolfe reappeared, carrying his battered violin case. Sending Mal a quick smile, he unpacked the instrument and began to play. 

At the first notes, a ripple of pleasure went through the spirits of everyone within earshot, stallkeepers and fairgoers alike. The cacophony of emotions gradually shifted to a sense of quiet happiness and peace.

Mal sat up, drawing what felt like his first full breath since they had entered the square. The headache receded just enough that he could focus on his surroundings. Still no buggerup on this side of the stall; he got to his feet, wincing, and looked around.

“None of the other stalls have been damaged,” Ben murmured to him. “I think it must be confining itself to the place where it was summoned.”

Mal nodded and examined the stall more closely. Wait – was that a flicker of color at the corner of his eye? Squinting against the stallkeeper’s bright aura, he turned to look in that direction.

Behind the counter was a sloping board with holes of different sizes to throw the balls through. Mal was just in time to see a small furry head pop up from one of the holes, then disappear again. A moment later it reappeared from another hole. Seeing Mal watching, it broke into giggles. “The Omalley!” it squeaked. “Come play, Omalley! Fun!”

Mal grinned despite himself. The little thing reminded him of the Hippo of Happiness. “There ‘e is,” he said, pointing. “Playin’ in th’ holes.”

The young woman sputtered, her aura flaring with indignation. “It’s playing? All this trouble it’s caused, and it’s just – _enjoying_ itself?”

Mal and Ben exchanged a look. If the woman saw the fairly minor damage as “all this trouble”, Mal reckoned this must be her first buggerup.

“I’ll start drawing the circle,” Ben said. “You go tell Wolfe that we’ve found it, and the two of you can – “ 

“Nah,” Mal interrupted quickly. He wasn’t sure he could keep this up if Wolfe stopped playing. “I’ll get th’ buggerup meself.”

He slipped behind the counter and cautiously approached the sloping board, talking in what he hoped was a soothing tone. “Hey, y’want t’ go home? C’mere, an’ we’ll send ye back. It’ll jus’ take a minute…”

The buggerup giggled again and disappeared down a hole. When it popped up again Mal made a grab for it, but he was too slow. This made it giggle more than ever. “Play!” it squeaked. “Catch me, Omalley!” It began popping in and out of holes all over the board, moving too fast for Mal to get hold of it.

“What’s happening, O’Malley?” Ben called from the other side of the counter.

“Flippin’ thing’s playin’ keep-away!” Mal panted, lunging and missing. “C’mere…ye…little…”

Throwing himself full-length across the board, he managed to grab the buggerup by the scruff of the neck just as it was about to duck down another hole. It was only a little longer than his hand, with a round head and spindly limbs. The whole thing was covered with spikes of fur in several different loud colors. It seemed to think its capture was a tremendous joke; as Mal carried it carefully over to where Ben had drawn a circle on the cobblestones, it clung to his coat sleeve, still giggling.

“Nicely done,” Ben said, nodding to him, when the desummoning was finished. “I’ll just settle up here, and then we can leave.” He began discussing payment with the young woman, and Mal went over to Wolfe.

The violin case had a scattering of coins in it; they had wound up busking after all, Mal thought. Wolfe reached the end of a phrase and lowered the violin to smile at him. “How are you, my friend? Is our work finished here?”

Mal couldn’t reply; as the last notes of the music faded, the full force of the crowd hit him again, doubling him over. He staggered and would have fallen to his knees if Wolfe hadn’t caught his arm.

“Let us get you home,” Wolfe said gently. “Ben? We need you here, please.”

Ben hurried over, his aura flickering with anxiety. He held Mal up while Wolfe put his violin away, and between them they supported him out of the square.

Through the blinding pain, Mal distantly heard Ben ask, “Is he…going to be all right? It isn’t usually as bad as this.”

“I have seen this happen to him before,” Wolfe answered. “Festivals and such are hard because the emotions of the crowd are strengthened, I think. We try to avoid when we can.”

Ben was silent for a moment. “Well, if we ever get another job involving a b – malform at a fair, perhaps you and I can handle it alone,” he said. “It won’t be easy, certainly, but I don’t like to ask him to go through this again unless there’s a real need.”

By the time they reached the office, Mal was able to stumble upstairs, strip to his vest and trousers, and fall into bed. Wolfe spread an extra blanket over him.

“Sleep well, Mal, my friend,” he said, smoothing Mal’s unruly hair out of his face. “You will feel better when you wake, yes?”

Mal was unexpectedly ambushed by a memory of Enid. Since her death he had mostly shied away from thinking about her, but pain and exhaustion were eroding his usual internal barriers. He had had the headaches back then, too; although he hadn’t known the words to explain what caused them, she had worked it out and had kept their wagon away from crowds when possible. For just a moment he was a little boy again, curled up with his head buried in Enid’s skirts, her work-roughened hand stroking his hair as if to smooth away the pain. 

As he began to slip into sleep, the memory blurred together with Wolfe’s hand on his hair until he no longer knew which of them was beside him, only that he was surrounded by the protection and love of a great, soaring spirit.


End file.
